I am Anthony Garcia, a Filipino studying at the University of the Philippines Manila, taking up Arts in Development Studies. The Development Studies program of UP Manila aims to equip its students with the basic knowledge of development concepts and applications, to various countries. The Philippines, being an emerging new economy, has its fair share a wide spectrum of ideas relevant to its growth and development. In line with this objective, I’m constantly learning new knowledge about first and foremost, my country. The history in the various fields, political, social, economic and cultural aspects. Relevant to the study are the causes of backwardness of some countries, especially in the third world. But that doesn’t stop there. We criticize and propose alternative solutions in order to lessen, if not totally eradicate the perennial problem of poverty.

The problem of terrorism has indeed spread like fire. Countless incidents happened in many countries especially capitalist ones. And the one which highlighted them all is the September 11 attack last year, which killed thousands of innocent lives. Imagine a great disaster which we hope did not happen anymore. Recently, further developments have constantly been changing that affects not just those who condemn acts of terrorism like the capitalists but also those neutral ones. The Philippines has played a major part in helping suppress and regulate such acts along with other countries of course with America’s aid. It would not be surprising due to huge resources. All I can say is that I’m in favor of crushing those terrorist but not in the way that a lot more people will be affected.

The US-Iraq confrontation at the moment only manifests stage one of terrorism in my view. Because having understood terrorism and its context, which means unlawfully killing people especially the civilian without due costs just as what happened in the New York incident. I totally disagree with your policy of waging a war just because there are suspicion of Iraq’s possession of prohibited nuclear weapons. The end does not justify the means. If that happens, chain reactions occur. Economies of most countries would sag down, bringing high levels of unemployment, inflation, the list goes on.

In order to solve the problem , I think there should always be some form of a pact between countries through peaceful talks and that war is only used as the last resort if all other solutions have already been exhausted.

Anthony Garcia

The date posted here is due to our website rebuild, it does not reflect the original date this article was posted. This article was originally posted in Yonip in 2002